Therapy

“Tubby,” I said, putting on my most seductive voice, “I want you. I need you. Now. Come. Take me.” He gave a sort of groan and said, “I can’t. I’ve just taken a towel from the bathroom.” It was a second or two before the penny dropped. I said, “Well, I hope you leave it on the floor so the next guest doesn’t get it,” and slammed the phone down in a temper. I turned off the telly, swallowed a sleeping tablet and a miniature of scotch and passed out. When I woke up the next morning I saw the funny side of it, but Tubby couldn’t face me. He left a message at Reception with my air ticket, saying that he’d gone back to the cemetery to look for Regine’s grave and would be returning by a later plane. So what do you think of that for a story? Oh, I forgot, you can’t speak. Never mind, I’ve got to dash anyway. Oh, dear, I’ve eaten all your grapes. Listen, I’ll come back tomorrow and bring you some more. No? You think you’ll be out by then? Really? Well, I’ll give you a ring at home, then. Goodbye, darling. I have enjoyed our chat.
     

* * SALLY * *
     
    BEFORE WE START, Dr Marples, I’d like to establish the agenda of this meeting, so there’s no misunderstanding. I agreed to see you because I want Tubby to accept that our marriage is over. I’d like to help you to help him to come to terms with that fact. I’m not interested in trying to negotiate a reconciliation. I hope that’s quite clear. That’s why I said in my letter that I would only meet you on my own. We’re beyond marriage counselling now, well beyond it. Quite sure. Yes, we tried it before — didn’t Tubby tell you? About four or five years ago. I can’t remember her name. It was somebody in Relate. After a few weeks with both of us, she recommended that Tubby should have psychotherapy for his depression. He told you about that , I presume? Yes, Dr Wilson. Well, he saw him for about six months, and he seemed better for a while. Our relationship improved, we didn’t bother to go back to Relate. But within a year he was worse than ever. I decided that he would never be any different, and that I’d better organize my life so that I was less affected by his moods. I threw myself into work. God knows there was no shortage of things to do. Teaching, research, administration — committees, working parties, syllabus design and suchlike. My colleagues complain about the paperwork in higher education these days, but I rather enjoy mastering it. I have to face the fact that I’m never going to do earth-shaking research, I started too late, but I’m good at admin. My field is psycholinguistics, language acquisition in young children. I have published the odd paper. Oh does he? Well, he doesn’t understand a word of it, so he’s easily impressed. He’s not really an intellectual, Tubby. I mean, he has a wonderful ear for speech, obviously, but he can’t think abstractly about it. It’s all intuitive with him.
    So I threw myself into work. I didn’t consider divorce at that stage. I was brought up very conventionally, my father was a C of E vicar, and for me there’s always been a certain stigma attached to divorce. It’s an admission of failure in a way, and I don’t like to fail at anything I set out to do. I knew that to other people — friends, relatives, even our children — our marriage must have seemed very successful. It had lasted so long without any visible upsets, and our standard of living soared with Tubby’s success. We had the big house in Hollywell, the flat in London, the two cars, holidays in luxury hotels, and so on. The children were through university and happily settled in adult life. I think most people we knew envied us. It would have been galling — it has been galling these last few weeks — to admit that the outward appearance was an illusion. I suppose too I shrank from the bitterness and anger that seem inseparable from divorce. We’d seen a fair amount of it among our friends. I thought, if I occupied myself fully at work, I could put up with Tubby’s moodiness at home. I used to bring work home as well, as extra protection. It was a wall I could retreat behind. I thought that as long as we enjoyed doing some things together, like tennis, and golf, and were still having sex regularly, that would be enough to sustain the marriage. Yes, I read an article once that made a great impression on me, saying that marriage breakdown in the fifties — I mean between couples in their